Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 21, 1 by LindaTX8

LindaTX8 wrote:
And a shot of ZLW cats...getting big! I was disappointed to find that I don't have Julia cats after all...yet, at least. Oh, BTW, I talked to a lady yesterday who saw a Janais Patch butterfly laying eggs on her Firespike blooms and is taking measures to protect and raise the cats. She posts on GW. I gave her a Flame Acanthus plant so she'd have another host plant. Guess I'll go out later and check all my remaining Flame Acanthus...just in case! My theory about these BFs coming up here is that the rainy Texas weather this summer led to lots of growth on host plants farther south and a population explosion for the BFs. And when the foliage was depleted in south Texas they headed north. I'm wondering how long my passies will keep feeding the numbers of cats I'm seeing on them. The ZLW cats seem more picky about the freshness and quality of their foliage than the GF are. Some that started on P. caerulea I'm switching to Maypop or Incense because the only fresh P. caerulea left seems to be high up in a tree.

This message was edited Oct 14, 2007 8:45 AM